


That's My Emotional Support Acute Stress Response, Sir

by KrisseyCrystal (IceCreAMS)



Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [18]
Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Angst, Bad Things Happen Bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Heart-to-Heart, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Lloyd Irving/Zelos Wilder, Was Too Hard on Them, it's zelos angst hours babey, set after Corrine's sacrifice, the others are mentioned but they don't appear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24023719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IceCreAMS/pseuds/KrisseyCrystal
Summary: "Do you want to talk about it?" Lloyd asks and Zelos laughs.
Relationships: Lloyd Irving/Zelos Wilder
Series: Bad Things Happen Bingo [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648339
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40
Collections: Bad Things Happen Bingo





	That's My Emotional Support Acute Stress Response, Sir

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silver_fish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silver_fish/gifts).



There’s fight, flight, freeze, and then there’s Zelos, who is pretty sure he has improvised a hidden fourth option of saying fuck it. 

He’s not sure if it’s morally right to storm off in a--let’s be honest--deliberate, if petty, effort to guilt everyone else. Hell, Zelos isn’t one to think he typically has the luxury of debating the morality of anything in his cursed life, but being around those losers with all of their starry-eyed hope and determination has made him…think. And he hates that. He’s bad at that. Just like he’s bad at everything else.

So why is he overthinking his own anger again? He’s right to be angry. He knows he is.

Why does he feel pathetic?

“Zelos, wait!” 

Zelos shuts his eyes, as close as he will let himself get to a grimace in someone else’s company. He adds a well-plastered smile, which usually does the trick. “Lloyd, I’m fine. I’m just takin’ a walk.” 

“Yeah, away from camp _._ ” Lloyd’s careless, heavy footfalls are one of his many signatures that make Zelos think, _Y’know if I kept my eyes closed, I think I’d still know who it was walkin’ beside me._ The brunet has a wild way of creating so much more clumsy, eccentric noise than he needs to. “What if you run into monsters?”

“Aw, are you worried about me? That’s cute.” 

“Zelos…”

Zelos shrugs and lifts his hands. “I think I can take care of myself. Though it’s sweet of you to worry.”

“I’m always worried about you.”

Oh. 

A twig snaps under Zelos’ shoe. He pauses, the small sound enough to break his train of thought. Or maybe that was courtesy of the humble honesty in Lloyd’s words; Lloyd who is always so forthright he doesn’t even have it in him to have a dark, knotting mess in his own head like Zelos.

“Colette’s worried too. I think everyone is, really.” 

Damn. 

Lloyd continues as if he doesn’t see or notice the internal knot winding itself tighter and tighter inside Zelos. Or maybe he does and he’s trying in his own Lloyd-ish-way to make it better. “If we took it too far, you can always tell us. Y’know? It’s not funny if it hurts you.”

Zelos chuckles. It sounds genuine even to his own ears. He fixes his gaze on the dark greenery around them. “What, you think I can’t take a good ribbing now and then?”

“I know that you haven’t looked at me once since I followed you out here.” 

Zelos exhales and turns, which admittedly is probably exactly what Lloyd wants. The brunet even proves it by softening, the hard look in his brown eyes melting. 

“There,” Zelos says and he throws on his own breathtaking smile for good measure, the one he knows gets a rise out of the girls in Meltokio. “Now I’m looking at you. Does that convince you that I’m fine? Will you leave me alone?”

Lloyd’s eyes openly search his face. 

How does he do that? How does he feel comfortable enough to wear his heart on his sleeve where anybody can see it? Where anybody can take it and judge it for its own value?

How is he that brave?

“Do you want to talk about it?”

The idea is so, so ludicrous. Zelos can’t hold back the scoff that bursts up out of him. “Talking about it--”

“--you’re not looking at me again--”

“--talking about it would be suggesting that there is something _wrong.”_ Zelos bites his words off his tongue as he turns back to Lloyd again because the young man is infuriating when he wants his way. “Which, for the record, there isn't. I’m fine. I’m not going to be bothered or put-off by a little thing like a good joke.”

Lloyd’s frown is as much of an answer as anything.

“Don’t believe me? Here, then listen to this,” Zelos adds and points to either side of his cheeks, “listen to the sounds my mouth is making: I’m _glad_ they’re laughing at me. We’ve all been having a time of it lately. Sheena, especially. You know, I think I actually saw her smile just now?”

Lloyd blinks like he hadn’t thought about it.

It sets Zelos off again. “In fact, I think that was the first time I’ve seen her legitimately laugh after what happened with Corrine. And if that’s the case, then so what if a few things might rub me the wrong way? It’s fine. Good, even. It’s not like I’m good for anything else other than a big joke, am I right--”

“--what did you say?”

There it is again. 

Somewhere out there, somehow, a roulette wheel is spinning with a grand marquis sign high above it, labeled: “What Will Zelos Do Now?” There are only three spots on this multi-colored spinning disk, each of them more exciting than the last: Flight. Fight. Freeze.

Freeze. Flight. Fight.

Fight. Freeze. Flight.

_Freeze._

“Fuck,” Zelos breathes and Lloyd grabs at Zelos’ shoulders like he’s just said he’s going to jump off a cliff or something. Zelos would be lying if he tried to say he hadn’t thought about it before.

“What are you talking about, Zelos? You’re good for a lot! You’re not _just_ a punchline!” 

Lloyd shouts and hot and cold and iron and sand are a strange mixture to throw into the interior of his ribcage but it’s there, all clanking around and spinning like someone set a mixer to the highest speed and forgot the damn thing was plugged in. Zelos squeezes his face shut. “Aw, shit. Okay. Fuck. I know I started it, but can we _not_ have this conversation?”

“But--”

“Listen.” Zelos’ chest is tight, tight, tight, and he doesn’t know how to loosen it. “I know you’re great and you mean every word you say--” --because if there’s one thing vastly different between Lloyd and him it’s that Lloyd couldn’t tell a lie to save his life-- “--but it’s just not gonna work right now, okay? Believe me.”

Lloyd’s hands on his shoulders tighten for one awful stretch of a minute.

Slowly, they pull away. 

Zelos rubs a hand over his face and doesn’t want to think about what look Lloyd’s probably got on his face now. “Don’t…take this the wrong way. I appreciate what you’re trying to say. But right now? I think it’s best if I am just our local ‘punchline’ guy if that’s what you wanna call it.”

“But it hurts you.”

And Lloyd says it like it’s the only thing that matters.

Is it?

“Today, maybe.” And that honesty is harder than Lloyd knows for him to admit. When he meets Lloyd’s open-field brown with his guarded-shield blue, a small smile unwittingly stretches across his face. “But not tomorrow. Or the day after. And listen, I know I goof a lot, but I mean it when I say that it usually…doesn’t hurt. Not like this. Today was just…” 

Thinking back on it, Zelos isn’t even sure he can remember just what it was that set him off into _fuck it_ mode. Maybe it wasn’t important in the end.

“You really do mean that?”

“I told you I did, didn’t I?”

“I just…” Lloyd’s face twists and okay, Zelos kind of hates that. He hates that he’s the cause of it more. “Can’t always tell, I guess. I hate sacrifices and this whole thing kind of feels so close to being another one, y’know?”

 _Is_ a mask a sacrifice?

“But I’ll trust you,” Lloyd slowly says. “So that means you’ve gotta tell us: if someone says something that goes too far or we’re being too hard on you, speak up. You don’t have to sit through it because you think what we need to feel better is something that’s at the expense of you.”

_I’ll trust you._

Oh, if Lloyd only knew those are the last three words he should ever be saying to him.

“No one is going to resent you because you were being honest with us when something actually hurt you.”

Ah.

When Zelos looks away this time, Lloyd doesn’t challenge him or call his attention back. Instead, he waits. And he waits. He waits as long as Zelos needs until finally, he thinks his throat has stopped being too tight to allow his stupid vocal cords to function. 

“We should return to camp,” Zelos rasps.

“Yeah. If that’s what you want.”

And Lloyd--stupid, silly, open, brave Lloyd--stubbornly doesn’t leave his side the entire walk back.

There’s flight, freeze, or fight. And then there’s Lloyd, who Zelos is pretty sure has improvised a hidden fourth option to just face it.

**Author's Note:**

> BIG THANKS TO MY GOOD FRIEND TAYLO WHO REQUESTED "Was Too Hard on Them" from my Bad Things Happen Bingo Card with Zelos! IT'S ALKJSDFLKJDSF HONESTLY HARD TO GET INTO ZELOS' HEAD BUT I HOPE I DID HIM JUSTICE HERE. HE DESERVES ALL THE COMFORT AND STEADFAST ENCOURAGEMENT THAT LLOYD IS ITCHING TO GIVE HIM...
> 
> ANYWAY SLDKFJS this was a lot of fun!! if you'd like to request your own fic, i've got about [four "bad things happen" bingo prompts](https://somefinelipstickonthatpig.tumblr.com/post/617294982751109120/rated-t-fandom-tales-of-symphonia-prompt-was) left. feel free to check 'em out!!


End file.
